Sky Stitcher, page 2
How long have I been here?
…What am I doing here?
Lurah’s scarf brushed my cheeks, and the slight graze of fabric ignited my flesh with searing pain. The stealthy rays of the morning sun had wasted no time in scorching my unprotected skin. Hastily, I adjusted the covering, drawing it over my face to shield myself from further harm. The cursed vulnerabilities of the Daughters’ moonsilk skin. Why can’t we have beautiful bronzed complexions like the rest of those from the Realm of Taara?
I got to my feet and cast my gaze upward, wincing beneath the intensity of the sun’s rays. It burned high above, basking the dunes in its golden hue and sweltering heat, but at least the angry welts crisscrossing the sky had calmed to dullish gray scars. Still, something felt…off. Something I could not quite remember…a thought or a memory that skittered away like beetles fleeing the sun whenever I tried to grasp it.
I rubbed the fatigue from my eyes, staring vacantly across the dunes, letting my groggy mind attempt to make sense of my surroundings. Is it already past noon? A jolt of panic scattered the last dregs of my weariness, and I stood up. I’d missed morning prayer. And morning meal. And—I craned my neck to recalculate the position of the sun as I marched toward the guryas—midday meal. Shit. It must be nearly the hour for evening meal.
I grimaced, already anticipating Mother’s scolding. Where have you been? Did you say your prayers? Halah will never select a new Stitcher if we do not please her. Think of your Sisters—your family. I waved away the onslaught of imagined reprimands, but doubled my pace. Best not to keep Mother waiting any longer. At least I had the venom to help pacify her inevitable fury with me.
I marched toward the guryas, my hair sticking to the back of my neck and sand invading every thread of my tunic. Attempting to shake the dust from the garment, my hands wavered on the frayed fabric. My gaze settled on the slashes through the embroidery—the loose strands flailing in the wind like little soldiers that had fallen out of rank, waving their flags in defeat. Venom and hell. Lurah will murder me for ruining her tunic. What did I do?
Trailing a finger over the torn threads, I landed upon a slash in the fabric and found the long claw marks that had ripped through my skin. My fingers brushed over the crusted blood coating the wounds, and I winced, jolting with the memory of the crawler’s haunting faces, their sharp claws raking over my skin and the earsplitting screeches in the night. Did that—did that truly happen?
Have I gone mad? The unsettling possibility presented itself in my mind. But the memory of the crawlers’ fine, razor-like teeth flashed back to me, glinting in the moonlight while their eyes glowed with unrelenting malice.
Perhaps it had been real. There had been…so many of them. My heart pulsed with a violent throb of realization. I should have died. All the warmth drained from my face.
Am I dead?
No, a definitive voice within me answered, one buried by confusion, heat exhaustion, and general disbelief of the wild story my memories attempted to weave for me. You stole the heart of stars and ripped stitches from the skies.
My heart skipped a beat and a leaden weight sank into my stomach. Thief of stars.
No, no, no. Panic wedged its way into my throat, choking me until my eyes widened and my ears hummed with the rushing of my own pulse. I pawed at the fabric of the scarf hanging loosely over my sternum, searching for any trace of the ethereal glow, but the only thing sparkling between my breasts was my own sweat. The sun beat down on my brow, and I shook my head at the ridiculous notion. Thank Halah.
Clearly, the hours in the hot sun had compromised my lucidity. My memories were as hazy as a dune storm, at best—how could I think that any of that had been real? Surely it was just a nightmare. That was all.
Still, something like an iron fist gripped my heart, squeezing and constricting until the pain made my breath hitch. The fear…the fear had been so real last night. And the sky—I’d—I’d made everything worse. Prisha had spoken to me—
Venom and hell, I cursed. I need to get back to the guryas. To the Stitcher. I have to warn them about what I’ve done.
If I even did it.
But my heart galloped at an uncomfortable pace and a warmth spread through my chest. I looked down again, startled by the dazzling light nestled just below my sternum, pulsing with unfamiliar power. The heart of stars. It’s real. I snapped Lurah’s scarf around myself as if the simple gesture could somehow erase the truth I’d seen with my own eyes.
What did it mean? Had Halah…chosen me? Surely not. That was not how the choosing went according to the Eldress’s rambling tales. But Halah…had spoken to me. Or the stars had? Something had changed.
Tentatively, I loosened my deathlike grip on Lurah’s scarf and examined the unfamiliar pulse of power beneath my breastbone. Its warmth flowed through me, seeking out the tendrils of energy that seeped into our world from the rifts, feeling for the delicate warmth of their presence. I marveled as it streamed from me, reaching for the ribbons of light. I’d spent so much of my life avoiding them, but now, by some strange twist of fate, I had asked them to find me. Or rather…the heart of stars called them to me.
Wrapping the threads around my fingers, ignoring the way my heart raced with the brush of raw power I despised, I seized them. The Daughters considered these currents to be a sacred gift from Halah, a boon to help us win the war, but I suspected Halah had deserted us long ago and left us behind to finish her fight. Just like Prisha had left everything behind to finish us.
I rolled the strands uncertainly between my fingertips, and they hummed with warmth, then burst outward. The threads streaked toward the sky, igniting like fiery bolts of lightning as my fingers reached toward the stars, following a will of their own.
My hand wavered with shock. As soon as I paused, fingers still outstretched, the light glowing beneath my breastbone sputtered, a wick drowning in its own wax. I shook my head, snapping my focus back into place until the ribbons reemerged, blazing with life. Uncertainly, I willed them to move…wondering if I could coax them to weave stitches. The strands vibrated, winding together in a wobbling duet toward the closest rift. Then, the line pulled taut. It snapped into place like a beacon, refusing to bend to my will, before the mouth of Prisha’s rift slurped it into its dark depths.
Little Star Thief, caught in Prisha’s web. Shred the skies, or you’ll be—
Horrified, I ripped away, and as the connection between us severed, Prisha’s screech howled like a gale of wind. I froze, my muscles seizing with terror, and I shoved the uncontrollable power of the heart of stars away, drowning it beneath the dark ocean of my mistrust.
Never again, I promised myself. Never try that again.
The rift darkened, oozing with the oily curse spewed by the goddess’s hatred, then it split, pulled wider by a set of obsidian claws.
A grotesque face leered down at me, its orb-like eyes overshadowing the rest of its hellish features. The ribbons of magic surrounding me dissipated, but the damage was done. Instead of stitching the sky together, I’d summoned Prisha’s attention. And in turn…one of her monsters. Leave it to me to make things worse.
The bulgroich, one of Prisha’s most detestable creatures of the In Between, hurtled to the ground in a burst of starlight. The blazing comet tail trailing behind it seared my retinas, blinding part of my vision. The air rushed from my lungs as the creature blasted into me, wrapping its spider-like arms around my chest, aiming its teeth at the skin below my neck. The bulgroich did not shred its victims like the crawlers—they merely devoured hearts, keeping their prey alive just long enough to witness the blood dripping down their faces as their victim’s last breaths escaped.
I tumbled, rolling to the side to free myself from its clutches. Its teeth sank into my shoulder, and my back arched as I screamed, but it didn’t release me. For a creature with such a brittle frame, its grip never wavered. Its bony limbs tightened and constricted wherever it could grasp, but I wedged my elbow between its arm and gripped the smooth handle of the dagger sheathed by my ribs. Sand sprayed into the air as we wrestled for dominance, and the creature sputtered with a wailing hiss when the grains flew into his eyes. The sound was nothing compared to the anguished gurgle of its death when my dagger sank into its throat.
I pushed the creature off me and laid back in the sand, throwing an arm over my eyes to shield my vision from further damage, heaving for gulps of air that never fully satisfied my lungs.
Why would you expect to be anything other than chaos? I laughed. Not with amusement but with a bitter taste of resentment in my mouth.
Had I really just tried to master the duties of the one role I knew I was never suited for? And for what purpose? Morbid curiosity? Presumptuous dread? I frowned at my mind’s hesitant suggestion of another possibility. A tinge of…unbidden hope? No. Not that. The confusing jumble of thoughts twisted inside my gut, but I forced them away—now was not the time to unravel such nuances.
You are not meant to be a Stitcher, I assured myself, focusing on the positives. And thank Halah for that.
But if the heart of stars was truly unrelated to stitching…it was something completely unknown. Unpredictable. Perhaps even dangerous. And it had inconveniently commanded the full attention of both goddesses…something I’d never wanted. And something I needed to fix.
Whatever I’d done—whatever I’d stolen from the sky—I could not use it again. Ever. I’d only make things worse.
The gash on my shoulder burned like fire, and I winced when I rolled over to my hands and knees, blinking the smudges of blindness from my eyes. I could not linger here. I needed food and water, and I knew I would not last against another of Prisha’s creatures. Pull yourself together, Zara. Mother’s waiting. Truth be told, her wrath was a monster far more frightening than the ones from the In Between.
And I did not look forward to enduring her anger. If she ever found out about what I’d stolen…what I feared I’d done…
I struggled to swallow the dry lump forming in my throat.
Chapter 3
Tapestries and Tea
Stepping into the gurya was like wading into the night sky. Darkness engulfed me, for the fabric walls of the tent absorbed every trace of light, leaving behind an endless void of blackness while the Daughters prayed. Above, the mouth of the gurya opened wide to the heavens, but no trace of the fading sunlight slipped through the gap to bask the room in its glow. The Daughters required unrestricted access to earth and sky to use their magic, but they shut out the sunlight during prayers, preferring to maintain darkness to heighten their reverence. It was a magic I didn’t fully understand, but one that felt like home.
The room thrummed with the gentle weaving of the Daughters’ magic as they communed with the goddess. Once my eyes readjusted to the darkness, the lumpy shadows in the curved room took on more defined shapes. My Sisters sat in total silence, eyes closed, harnessing the threads of light to transform them in prayer. As they worked, they blindly weaved a communal tapestry that rippled with new rows of stitches. My tapestry…the one to be presented at A’i Halajan when the elders gifted me in marriage. My stomach soured at the reminder of the upcoming festival, and my duty to create new Daughters for the clan.
Around their ankles, the ribbons mutated to sickly moss-colored bindings, tethering them to the ground, both a part of them and distinctly foreign. Otherworldly and grotesque. The corner of my mouth twisted as I pulled Lurah’s scarf tighter around my shoulders, bunching it in front of my sternum. Some gift Halah’s magic was. Looked more like a curse to me.
The eerie roots pulsed with a heartbeat of their own and snaked tighter and tighter, but the Daughters did not flinch, nor did they complain. Not ever. Not even when the roots threatened to strangle them alive, or their fingers became entangled in the threads of the tapestries they weaved in their dreams. The worst was their eyes, milky white and vacant. Like the crawlers’. Mother assured me the goddess would never harm us, but still—there was a reason I favored guarding.
Mother said if we showed our daily devotions by weaving in prayer, Halah would finally choose a new Stitcher to replace the Eldress. She’d been saying that for years, but the current Stitcher had only grown more useless with every prayer-filled day. Without a proper Stitcher, nobody was left to hold back Prisha’s war, and the realm would perish.
But if I did nothing to undo whatever mess I’d created last night…if I didn’t warn the Eldress and ask her to wake—to restitch the tears I’d accidentally opened—the realm would perish anyway.
I needed to talk to her.
I trembled like a bucket of ice water had been tossed over my head. If I wanted to speak with the Eldress, I had to go through the proper chain of command—but the last person I wanted to speak to was Mother. The Daughters elected Loehla to the respected position of Mother long before my birth, but there were few times when I saw eye to eye with her. She was not an easy woman to deal with, and I didn’t have time for her interference or anxieties. Perhaps another serving of tea would hold her in the trancelike state required for weaving long enough for me to talk to the Eldress without her meddling tactics.
I wiped the sweat from my palms on the pleats of my skirt and tiptoed my way through the threading Daughters, grateful they were far too immersed in their prayers to notice my revulsion.
Shivering again, I jumped over one of Juna’s roots, conceding to the irrational fear that her bindings would ensnare me, too, if they noticed my presence. Best not to interfere with a Daughter in the goddess’s presence, bound by roots in earth and sky.
The fire pit was still warm, though the cookfire had been extinguished to maintain the darkness for prayers. Mother thought the goddess would only contact us in the dark, as the Eldress had preached when she was still powerful enough to lead us. Something about a prophecy—but I’d stopped listening to Mother’s teachings so long ago. They were almost as unbearable as the Stitcher’s.
A light unfolds from the darkness, beginning what will have no end. The words pulsed in my mind, reemerging from the dark recesses of memory. You are the light and I am the end.
My body stiffened as I recalled the words Prisha had crooned, and a numb, tingling sensation spread through my limbs. I’d always thought that the prophecy foretold a new Stitcher, a new leader, to protect our people and deliver us from Prisha’s wrath. Something good to hope for. But Prisha insisted the words had been meant for me.
The only end I’d begun was the beginning of our end. Time to fix that.
I slipped the backpack from my shoulders, careful to place it gently upon the sandy floor. But not careful enough. My shaking limbs knocked into the metal handle of a saucepan sitting on the edge of a grate set over the fire. It spun, swirling the remnants of midday meal—lorbean paste by the sweet, nutty aroma of it.
I lunged to stop its teetering progress over the edge, but knocked into the tea kettle instead, dislodging it from where it hung over the dregs of the cookfire. The kettle flew into the wooden support beam of the gurya, and the lid rattled against the ground as it rolled to my feet.
Venom and hell. What is wrong with you, Zara? Light flared at my sternum as my heart rate quickened. I hastily adjusted Lurah’s scarf to hide it.
The air crackled behind me, and my shoulders slumped. Of course she’d heard me. Had she seen? I spun around, clutching the layers of scarf over my heart, not needing the light to know whose shadowy form I faced. This was her gurya to protect—her charge. And as Mother, her dwelling was most important because it housed the ancient Eldress. Any disturbance would call her attention.
Mother’s roots receded, winding and twisting away to unbind her until she sat upright with a jolt, gasping sharply for breath as though she had been held below water all this time. Her eyes shot open, landing directly upon me. “Zaraya Avasya.”
Full name. Perfect.
Her voice was calm and even, almost a whisper, but she had not yet mastered how to extend that same composure to her eyes. I searched for something to say, something to explain my interference during the clan’s prayers, and braced myself for the inevitable implosion of her temper. Her irises flickered with—anger? Worry? I could not tell, but I knew her reaction would be unpleasant.
“You came back.” She rose and crossed the distance between us, clasping my shoulders in her angular grip. The intensity of her gaze made me recoil, but her firm hold did not slacken. “You’re injured.”
She regarded me as though she could not entirely believe my presence, patting my arms with her hands, then retreated to collect a tin from a shelf at the outskirts of the room. When she returned, she dipped her fingers into the sticky salve, then brushed my tunic aside to reveal the jagged gash at my shoulder.
I gasped and flinched away, frightened she might shift Lurah’s scarf and reveal the light I hid from her, but she merely shushed me and set herself to healing, as mothers do. Not that Loehla was truly my blood mother, but she was Mother to my whole generation of Sisters, and that bond was most important.
The balm soothed the burning pain into a dull but lingering ache that tingled with icy relief. Her cheeks sagged into a frown. “You missed the morning and midday prayers. It is already time for evening prayer.”
Regardless of my absence, I would have evaded them. But best not to incur her wrath with such a reminder.
“I—the heat got to me.” I didn’t want to share what I remembered of my evening…only Halah knew the lengths to which Mother would unravel if I told her. She was not the one I needed to help with this mess. “Mother, let me see the Stitcher.”
Her eyes narrowed into an austere expression of disapproval. “She is resting. Praying to Halah, as you should be.”
“Mother, it’s important. The sky—”
She waved her hand to stop me. “You spend too much time chasing the monsters, Zara. We need you here, too. The Eldress is dying.”
My breath caught in my throat and the ground spun around me. “Dying?” If the Eldress could not help us, Prisha would win. I’d handed her a victory in a star-gilded goblet. The Eldress couldn’t die. Not yet…I needed to talk to her. “Yes, but—something’s wrong. The sky is worsening—more tears are opening. More of Prisha’s monsters. The travelers going to A’i Halajan need protection. We should send out more Daughters to patrol the desert. The festival is starting soon, and I—”
